Wednesday, 14 September 2011

As I mentioned in my review of the Milch + Weizenpops last week, Ritter Sport have somehow managed to squeeze in another two new flavour variants alongside their usual seasonal limited editions. The second new chocolate which I'm featuring today is the new Ritter Sport Noisette. Propositionally this bar sounded very familiar to a lot of previously reviewed Ritter bars that had featured on the site before - Nougat Praline (See HERE) and Nuss in Nugatcreme (See HERE). Looking at the scores of those two, this bar obviously had some promise as this was an area where Ritter had shown some competency in before. One thing this one did have me wondering though is whether the hazelnut is the national nut of choice in Germany!? I don't think there is another country in the world that flavours so many of their chocolates with this one ingredient - If someone can tell me why Germany loves hazelnuts so much I will send you a bar (best explanation wins!!)

Unlike last weeks bar which was a 250.0g beast, this Noisette is an addition to the standard 100.0g range. As usual the presentation of the chocolate was of a fair to good standard, though Ritter have had to double up on the choice of colour given for the wrapper - Keks + Nuss (See HERE). The Chocolate inside the plastic packet was branded with the usual Ritter logos and broke apart with a surprisingly soft, almost gooey ease. Aroma wise the chocolate was relatively mild in fragerance, however there was a detectable nutty hazelnut scent that was decently reassuring.

My worryingly ever improving German language reading skills led me to interpret that this was a bar consisting of simply 'milk chocolate with hazelnut mass' i.e. gianduja! Reading that, the soft yielding texture suddenly began to make sense and it struck me as extremely promising that the total bar consisted of over 13.5% hazelnut. Suffice to say I was expecting a big time hazelnut flavour hit and I guess on balance this it was delivered to a relatively good standard. Containing 30.0% cocoa the chocolate was it's ever fair self and delivered it's standard milky sweet flavour base. Just as the break up action suggested, the texture was very unique and this chocolate melted in true gianduja fashion with an infinite fast, smooth softness and almost a cool melting sensation. As the quick melt developed the hazelnut flavours became increasingly prevalent in their raw woodiness, however they were very short lived and thus severly limited the chocolates ability to feel totally satisfactory.

Overall this chocolate had some pretty obvious pros and cons that are well reflected in the scoring chart you see below. Working in it's favour, it tasted very nice and the promised hazelnut influence was brought to the party by the very generously portioned hazelnut mass ingredients. Another area where this bar had strength was also in the mouth feel that it had as it melted - anyone who has ever had gianduja chocolates will know what to expect here - spectacular! Unfortunately this Noisette bar did admittedly have it's shortcomings though with the most notable weakness being it's inability to serve as a fulfilling chocolate. Normally I feel that a 50.0g portion of any chocolate is a more than adequate amount, yet not at all with this one. There's no doubting this Noisette bar tastes great, but it's really not one you want to be eating if it is hunger satisfaction you are after.